In one conventional arrangement, a host processor in a client executes an operating system. The operating system stores data at the client. Software agents executed by, in association with, and/or as part of the operating system in the client implement malicious program (e.g., virus) detection/repair utilities with respect to the data stored at the client. Unfortunately, in this conventional arrangement, as a result of the agents being software processes that rely upon the operating system, the agents themselves and their operations may be relatively easily tampered with by the malicious programs. Such tampering may render the software agents inoperative and/or may result the co-opting of the agents' functions for use by the malicious programs. Also, these operating system agents do not provide these utilities unless the host processor in the client is executing the operating system agents in a powered-on state. Unfortunately, this may result in the client consuming an undesirably large amount of power to provide these utilities. Also, since the agents are executed by the host processor, an undesirably large amount of the host processor's processing bandwidth, as well as, an undesirably large amount of processing time may be consumed to provide these utilities. This is especially true given the increasing number of malicious programs coming into existence, and as a result, the increasing number of data patterns to be examined by the agents in order to determine whether such malicious programs are present. Additionally, if the operating system or agents have not been properly installed, the utilities may not function properly, if at all.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended that the claimed subject matter be viewed broadly.